North Korea has called for an end to hostile relations with the United States in a New Year message, the official news agency KCNA reported.

"The fundamental task for ensuring peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the rest of Asia is to put an end to the hostile relationship between the DPRK (North Korea) and the USA," it said in a report of a joint newspaper editorial on the country's foreign policy stance.

It added: "It is the consistent stand of the DPRK to establish a lasting peace system on the Korean peninsula and make it nuclear-free through dialogue and negotiations."

US President Barack Obama wrote a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il this month to try to persuade Pyongyang to return to nuclear disarmament talks.

North Korea a year ago stepped away from a deal with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States to end its nuclear program in exchange for massive aid and an end to its international ostracism.

North Korea has exploded nuclear devices but has yet to show it has a working nuclear bomb. Experts doubt the North has the ability to miniaturize an atomic weapon to place on a missile, but it has been trying to develop such a warhead.